About

Action Center on Race & the Economy

What is ACRE?

The Action Center on Race & the Economy (ACRE) is a campaign hub for organizations working at the intersection of racial justice and Wall Street accountability. We provide research and communications infrastructure and strategic support for organizations working on campaigns to win structural change by directly taking on the financial elite that are responsible for pillaging communities of color, devastating working class communities, and harming our environment. We partner with local organizations from across the United States that are working on racial, economic, environmental, and educational justice campaigns and help them connect the dots between their issues and Wall Street so that each of the local efforts feeds into a broad national movement to hold the financial sector accountable.

We approach all of our work through an explicit racial lens. We believe that race and class are intrinsically linked and that it is not possible to fix the structural problems in our economy in a race-neutral way. The financial and corporate elite use structural racism, targeting Black and Latino communities in particular, to divide us and pit us against each other while they destroy our livelihoods. We cannot achieve economic, environmental, or educational justice until we confront structural racism and take our demands directly to the financial elite profiting off the crises in our communities. At ACRE, we dedicate ourselves to doing just that.

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The ACRE Team

Co-Executive Director

Maurice BP-Weeks

Maurice is the Co-Executive Director of ACRE. He works with community organizations and labor unions on campaigns to go on offense against Wall Street to beat back their destruction of communities of color. He was previously the Campaign Director of the ReFund America Project and worked as the Wall Street Accountability and Housing Justice campaigner at the Center for Popular Democracy before that. Maurice serves on the Advisory Council of Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD). He graduated from Swarthmore College.Twitter: @mo87mo87

Co-Executive Director

Saqib Bhatti

Saqib is the Co-Executive Director of ACRE and the Director of the ReFund America Project. He works on campaigns to rebalance the relationship between Wall Street and local communities. He was previously a fellow at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and spent 10 years working on corporate accountability campaigns at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE HERE prior to that. Saqib is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and serves on the board of the Midwest Academy and Muslim Alumni of Yale. He graduated from Yale University.Twitter: @snbhatti

CAMPAIGN Director

Angela Peoples

Angela is the Campaign Director of ACRE. She is an organizer, trainer, and strategist, focusing on building movements for economic, racial and gender justice. She previously worked as the Executive Director of GetEQUAL and helped established the Students and Young Consumers Office at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Angela is a member of Black Youth Project 100, DC Chapter, and the Founder and Principal Strategist of MsPeoples, a consulting group founded under the philosophy: “We are the experts!” Black women and women of color know how to organize and mobilize our communities to build political power and make the lasting change needed to move this country forward.Twitter: @MsPeoples

Research Director

Carrie Sloan

Carrie is the Research Director at ACRE and the ReFund America Project. She works on campaigns to restore the balance of economic power from Wall Street to Main Street. Prior to that, she spent more than 10 years working in the labor movement as a strategic researcher for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and a rank and file member of the United Auto Workers (UAW). She holds a master’s degree from the University of California at San Diego.

Operations Director

Vitoria Herring

Vitoria brings more than 15 years of experience to the ACRE team in business, operations, and finance. Vitoria has specialized in helping startups, small businesses, and large enterprises manage their operations and grow their businesses. With expertise in the for-profit and nonprofit sector, Vitoria brings an unparalleled wisdom to the team. She enjoys using technologies to better assist her clients in streamlining their processes for more efficiency.

Research AnaLyst

Alyxandra Goodwin

Alyx is a Research Analyst at ACRE. She is a multi-talented activist who has worked as a journalist and serves as the Co-Chair of the Chicago chapter of BYP100. She maintains a personal blog, Young Black and Woke, where she blogs about the Movement for Black Lives and her role in it.Twitter: @FREEwrites_